dear grandpa...

Dearest Grandpa,

 

Last night I volunteered to be a parking lot attendant at my church.

SavRepTh has their production of "The Christians" there for this weekend and the next.

I watched the Lucas Hnath play on Thursday and was struck by the similarities between events on the stage and events that have affected Asbury Memorial for the past few years.

It seemed no mere coincidence that my church had agreed to host this play about a pastor who attends a conference and returns a changed man with new ideas for the direction his church needs to go, with new ideas about the interpretation of the words in the Bible, with new ideas about what occurs in the afterlife.

Right place, right time, I thought.

And I still believe I was meant to be there, I do.

But here is the problem: my mind has been swirling with questions raised during the play, absolutely roiling with the need to communicate with others about it.

Tonight, Ryan McCurdy and I hugged in greeting in the parking lot, then he asked if I had seen the play and how I felt about it.

I told him honestly what I just told you, and added, "I've realized that I have very few people in my life that I could discuss my questions with."

Ryan had paused, then said, "I know what you mean. The same is true for me."

That's rather sad, I thought.

Ryan is SavRepTh's Executive Artistic Director, which means he is the one who helps decide which plays will be produced by their troupe.

Ryan is the one who had chosen this play, "The Christians", and he had just told me that he knew few people he could have an honest discussion with about its plot points.

Jenn told me the same thing when I spoke with her at the end of my duties.

Jenn Bishop is the Managing Director of the troupe.

So, her voice has weight when it comes to play choice.

Jackie, of Wesley Oak Church, was there, too.

Before Jenn came in, Jackie and I had been talking about her little church, the one that Asbury Memorial merged with, the one with such meaning to Rev. Billy.

Jackie was surprised that so few in her congregation had come for the play.

I had said, "Well, there's about 20 people there, right?"

Yes, that's right, she'd told me, and most were quite elderly.

They had been so grateful, she added, that our church had taken them on, as the building and grounds had needed work, but there was no money from their small congregation.

I told her that's how Asbury Memorial UMC had been before Billy and Cheri Hester came.

She seemed very surprised to hear that.

 

She thinks of AsbMemCh as having a wealthy, large, long-established congregation, but that is not the case.

Just like the church in "The Christians", AsbMemCh had taken on great financial debt a decade or so ago, for a new roof, new air conditioning, new seats, new floor.

As good fortune would have it, the church had experienced a growth spurt and, with extra funds being pledged by its congregation for a three-year span, was able to have the work performed and able to repay the bank for the loan.

I was gladly part of that, too, as I was teaching full-time at Armstrong.

The problem came afterward, when part of that new contingent of the congregation wanted to have the LGBTQ+ community excised.

Billy had told them, right from the pulpit, that "this is God's church, and all are welcome here," at which point a good number of folks got up and left.

In the play tonight, when the pastor announced that he would no longer be preaching about the existence of Hell, several members of his congregation, including the choir, all got up and left, en masse.

He had held a vote, you see, for folks to choose to side with him, or to side with Assistant Pastor Joshua in favor of continuing to believe in Hell.

And it isn't that a lot of people left.

In truth, it was less than 5% that voted for Joshua, and some others who had abstained.

But there was a ripple effect, with others leaving the church as time progressed.

 

Asbury Memorial Church had held its first vote in September 2019.

The UMC had decided at its conference that LGBTQ+ weddings were forbidden in its member churches and those performing such weddings would be heavily penalized.

I know my cousin Bobby left his church over that decision.

Our church took a different tack.

Not only would Rev. Billy Hester cease performing weddings for anyone, he also wanted our church to leave the UMC group.

I know many in the congregation were determined to follow him, wherever he might lead.

So, after several informational sessions, to make sure all were aware of the financial consequences of this action (including taking on the payment of Billy's retirement fund), all members voted.

The vote was not unanimous, as many had expected it to be.

Some voted against the move, as I had; some abstained.

I was not surprised.

As time passed, the congregation at AsbMemCh worked to recover a financial cushion after the separation from the UMC world church organization.

In two years, the budget was looking better and there was even money in the bank savings, as several Elderberries had passed on during the pandemic and they had named the church in their wills.

And that's when we were hit with a sales pitch last year, about Wesley Oak UMC wanting to separate from the world church, too, but not having the funds to do so.

We had the funds in savings, we were told, to help them out and join forces.

All it would cost would be that quarter-million dollars... oh, and a pledge of time and service to help caretake for that property as well as our own.

I seriously doubted that we would be able to tend the grounds and do building upkeep on both, especially as it would fall to the younger members of our church to do so.

They have family obligations and parent caretaking already on their plates, so they simply do not have the time or energy.

So, we were all asked to vote as to which direction our church would take.

When the vote finally occurred, 25% had voted against the merger, as I had.

And, although I stayed with the church, I am sure others took that chance to leave, largely unnoticed, during the second year of the pandemic.

Their funds departed with them.

In fact, after taking on the little Thunderbolt church and paying its way free from the UMC umbrella, and paying for its repairs, my church is now in financial distress.

Sure, funds are usually low after the summer, when folks are on vacation and not actually in attendance and Billy is absent from the pulpit.

However, they're a good bit lower than usual, and the savings cushion went into the merged church, not into ours.

And, just as folks had done in "The Christians", they are questioning the motives behind the rescue of the tiny congregation of elders, questioning the expense of that venture and exhibiting buyer's remorse, questioning whether to stay or go.

At least Cheri is standing by her man, right?

 

In the play, the pastor's wife had been as surprised as the rest of the congregation when he had announced that Hell didn't exist... but she had kept her face composed and had said naught, not to him and not to them.

But she was finally "urged to communicate" as her husband would say.

A young member of the church had asked the pastor what she should tell her son were the wages of sin if there was not a Hell.

How should she encourage him to behave and do the right thing if the fires of the afterlife were not there to dissuade him?

Where might evil people like Hitler be, if not in Hell?

And the pastor had told her, "Well, Hitler is in Heaven. All people who die are in Heaven. Jesus died so that all would have life everlasting."

Of course the young mother kinda sorta lost it, right there in front of the whole church.

And when she left, others followed suit.

Not the pastor's wife.

She waited until they were home and then gave him what for about springing that on her.

"Hitler in Heaven??? What were you thinking???"

And he had tried to explain to her, but she was already questioning her love for him, already questioning her decision years ago to marry him, already questioning whether she could even stay in the church or with him.

I must admit, I had not given any thought to such a query, but, now, there it was.

How did I feel about it?

What did I think about such a thing as all people together ever after?

I've already been thinking about the question of just how often must one profess one's acceptance of Jesus as their Savior for it to count?

Having recently attended the first communion of my nephew, with him affirming his belief in Jesus and that Jesus died for his sins, will that affirmation be enough to grant his soul entry to Heaven, or will he need to do so multiple times to keep it valid?

After all, I've looked up the information on Adolf Hitler.

Earlier this afternoon, after watching "Jane Doe: The Eye Of The Beholder", about a Vermeer painting that had been stolen by the Nazi forces and later recovered.

One of the clues had concerned Hitler's birthday.

Was that real?

Was he truly born in 1889? 

Yes, that was correct.

That meant he was about 50 years old when he began the war on the world.

He was in the throes of a midlife crisis, and I had never heard anyone mention the effect of that hormonal imbalance on his decisions.

Men have hormones, too, and they wax and wane just like those of women.

Why wouldn't that have a role in his actions?

And, as I was considering that question and reading about his childhood, I stopped.

"The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even considered becoming a priest."

Eight year old??? Priest???

That was the age of my nephew.

Was Hitler Catholic???

Yes, he was.

That meant that, as a youth and a young man, he believed in the teachings of Christ and had accepted Jesus as his Savior.

It wasn't until he moved to Vienna at the age of 18 that he started believing racist bias that the Christians there held against the Jews. 

So, here is my question: If there is Heaven and if there is Hell...

and if one gains entry to Heaven by the acceptance of Jesus as Savior...

which Hitler did...

wouldn't it stand to reason that in accordance with the Bible, Hitler is in Heaven?

And how do I ask that without people thinking I condone his actions as an adult?

And who can I discuss this with without it turning into an attack?

And why can't I just leave this alone?

I do wish you were here.

We could have a grand discussion, as we once did on so many topics when I was a teen, topics that no one else in the family wanted to talk about with either of us.

As for my tres amigas, none of them will even consider going to the play, simply because it is called "The Christians".

They seem to think they'll be hit up to join a church.

I've tried to explain that the play is not about that.

I have family members who won't attend because they suspect it is anti-Christian.

I've tried to explain that the play is not about that, either.

It's about communication and faith and the importance of questioning one's beliefs every so often to determine if they're still valid for you.

At least I now know others whose minds are in this same sticky, questioning, place that mine is right now.

I sure wish you were here.

Maybe you were, up in that nexus of a cloud above the church tonight.

Hard to believe it's been forty years since we were together.

i thank You, God, for the ether to relay this message, and my love, to you.

with much love always,

your one-and-only, ever loving, granddaughter